[The study of iodine sufficiency in children of Kiev]

A total of 576 pupils in different age groups of a school in Kiev were examined. Determined in the above pupils by palpation and echography were sizes of the thyroid gland, urine excretion of iodine. Thyroid enlargement was identified in nearly 30 percent of the examined children, nodal pathology of the gland was in 0.52 percent. It was only in 34 percent of the examinees that the level of iodine excretion was more than 100 mcgrm/l, i.e. did not deviate from the norm; 5.3% of children had ioduria indices < 20 mcgrm/l, which observation suggested a severe iodine deficiency. In the major proportion of children the level of ioduria ranged from 50 up to 100 mcgrm/l, the median value for the group of children as a whole came up to 62.9 mcgrm/l. According to results of the studies made on goiter rates among children and on the level of urine excretion of iodine, the population are in want of bodily iodine, and Kiev falls in to a zone of mild iodine deficiency.